How America Lost The War On Drugs

[AdamG]

American travelers to Mexico should beware of possible violent retaliation for this week's arrest of alleged Zetas drug cartel associates and family members inside the U.S., the U.S. State Department has warned.

http://news.yahoo.com/travel-warning...nlwYWdl;_ylv=3

[davidbfpo]

Not strictly on topic, but fits here.

The World Drugs report for 2012 is out and it shows that 230 million people around the world - 1 in 20 of us - took illicit drugs in the last year. The report also says that problem drug users, mainly heroin - and cocaine-dependent people number about 27 million, roughly 0.6% of the world adult population. That's 1 in every 200 people. The report is published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and is full of fascinating stats - we've extracted some of the key ones for you in this visualisation, created by Andy Cotgreave of Tableau. Click on the map to see how drug use changes around the world.

Link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...-use-map-world

Not sure whether the UNODC has the best data.

[AdamG]

Narco u-boat update

After years of detecting these craft in the less trafficked Pacific Ocean, officials have seen a spike in their use in the Caribbean over the last year. American authorities have discovered at least three models of a new and sophisticated drug-trafficking submarine capable of traveling completely underwater from South America to the coast of the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/wo...pagewanted=all

[Bill Moore]

http://www.alternet.org/take-drug-wa...icy?page=0%2C0

Take That, Drug Warriors! 9 Amazing Signs We're Heading Towards Sane Drug Policy

We are at a paradoxical moment in our country. We are clearly moving in the right direction, toward a more rational drug policy based on science, compassion, health and human rights. But we need to step up our efforts, grow our numbers, and continue to win hearts and minds because the casualties from the war continue to mount every day. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.

An opinion. I agree the trend where both citizens and officials are challenging the rationale behind the way we're waging this war is increasing and that is a good thing. On SWJ there have been several articles and posts faulting our national leadership for not holding our generals accountable for failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, but those failures pale in comparison to our failures in the "war on drugs", and again no one is held accountable. The strategy for the so called war has never been seriously questioned. We just keep marching on.

[bourbon]

US judge receives 28-year jail term for his role in kids-for-cash kickbacks. The Independent, 30 April 2013.

An American judge known for his harsh and autocratic courtroom manner was jailed for 28 years for conspiring with private prisons to hand young offenders maximum sentences in return for kickbacks amounting to millions of dollars.

Mark Ciavarella Jnr was ordered to pay $1.2m (£770,000) in restitution after he was found to be a “figurehead” in the conspiracy that saw thousands of children unjustly punished in the name of profit in the case that became known as “kids for cash”.

Of course it is illegal for judges to receive kickbacks from private prison companies; however it is completely legal for private prison companies to dump money into legislative campaigns across the country. No doubt many of the cases that came into his courtroom were drug related.

If I had it my way, this man would receive the death penalty.

[Kiwigrunt]

Originally Posted by bourbon

If I had it my way, this man would receive the death penalty.

He may get that anyway....depending on how many of those kids will become his new room-mates.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by bourbon

US judge receives 28-year jail term for his role in kids-for-cash kickbacks. The Independent, 30 April 2013.

Of course it is illegal for judges to receive kickbacks from private prison companies; however it is completely legal for private prison companies to dump money into legislative campaigns across the country. No doubt many of the cases that came into his courtroom were drug related.

If I had it my way, this man would receive the death penalty.

I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg and it should be bigger news, but of course media stations that argue that more and more government functions should be privatized will do their best to keep this important story out of the headlines.

[Firn]

This criminal scheme organized by a judge was arguably one of the news bits which made the biggest impression on me. Maybe because it perverted something so incredibly important. 28 years and 1200000 $ seem not much for what he has done.

In any case I think it should kickstart a debate about the role of private prisons and the bad (terrible) incentives it creates. I'm not quite up to date but the US prison business is huge, with practical no counterpart in the rest of the world. It is of course no normal business which can happily left mostly to our dear efficient markets as the supply-side is completely controlled by state, with the profits of private prisons obviously getting financed by the taxpayer. Everything is set up to have the scope of the rule of law getting distorted into a very narrow direction. A good citizen tends to a be a bad citizen or 'private good' from the prison investor's point of view even if it is obviously excellent for the state as a whole.




The lack of lawyers for those kids is just amazingly disgusting, the arrogance of the rogue judges and the especially silence around them is shocking. The mafia has little on them. The US is a very wealthy nations can take sustain a lot of damage inflicted by such criminal behaviour and ideological idiocy. The war on drugs would have been long given up by not so wealthy nations which would have been unable to continue to throw more and more money at the problem and into the drain. Sometimes less ressources force more and better thinking.

Bourbons argument about the legal lobby is perfectly valid and reminds me of an old saying which roughly goes 'The scandal is not so much what gets done illegally, but what can be done legally'.

[slapout9]

What Happens When The CIA goes up against Wall Street?.......They loose!!

H/T to zenpundit for finding this!

http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/search/label/Mexico